


A Long-Delayed Night On The Town

by bmouse



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Fluff and Smut, Fragging for Peace, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, The Decepticons are Feeble and can't just ask their crushes out, Tropes, technically dub-con but fluffy tropey dubcon, they have to make it A Whole Production
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:40:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22194931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bmouse/pseuds/bmouse
Summary: The Quintessans are doing...something. The projected Cybertronian population graphs look pretty grim and even though everyone has tacitly agreed that enough is enough, Megatron has a Very Specific condition for agreeing to sign the Decepticon/Autobot peace treaty. Optimus is puzzled. Jazz is by turns scheming and laughing his aft off. Maybe a cool 4 million years after Orion Pax and his BFF were supposed to go clubbing the Autobot leader and TIC will finally get to metaphorically let their hair down.
Relationships: Jazz/Soundwave, Megatron/Optimus Prime
Comments: 66
Kudos: 211
Collections: MegOP Week 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheAwkwardEnthusiast](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAwkwardEnthusiast/gifts).



> This was a transparent excuse to write fluffy low-stakes G1 nonsense for MegOP week and then my pet rarepair Jazzwave decided it needed to happen too. Please don't even @me if I got some continuity thing wrong I have not seen the OG cartoon sober since I was a small child. Rating to go up in further chapters >_>

Soundwave entered the command office to find his Lord reclined behind his desk, wearing a fiendish smile. 

This, while not altogether rare, was a nice change from the pinch-faced expression he’d sported last week when he had been reviewing Quintessan activity and projected population attrition reports.

"Ah, Soundwave. I trust you weren’t followed.”

"Covert nature of meeting: known. Even cassettes: absent." 

"Good, good.” Megatron waved him in magnanimously “Now I have a question for you: if you could have say, an Autobot, _any_ Autobot. In your berth and reasonably willing, for an entire cycle, who would it be?" 

This question was nowhere in the probability scope that he had calculated for this conversation. Soundwave backtracked up his prediction tree. 

Ah, the treaty. Megatron’s final condition. Also the conspicuous absence of Starscream or Shockwave (both sent firmly off to Cybertron with appropriate distractions for the duration of the orn) suggested that along with the fulfilment of his own long-standing fantasy his Lord wished to give him a more _personal_ sort of reward. Soundwave was touched, truly. However...

"Excessive peace treaty terms: inadvisable." 

“I’ll be the judge of that.” The Decepticon Warlord’s optics flashed dangerously before crinkling charmingly at the corners “Don't be shy now, don’t think I can’t see you dodging the question!" 

If Soundwave was any other mech one might say he was tempted to… fidget.

But no, his Lord had demanded his honesty and he would have it.

"...Jazz."

“My, my Soundwave! In a mood to live dangerously?”

Soundwave said nothing, though he did enjoy the little flare of respect his answer had produced in Megatron’s EM field.

“Ah but at the same time, it is so very like you! Even your choice of reward naturally supports my own strategy. It is very likely that Prime will feel a misplaced sense of security bringing his lethal little TIC along. All the better to soften him up!”

“Analysis: valid.” Soundwave said diplomatically.

“And to think, soon he will be here, without his army, entirely in my power for an entire night! I was thinking of getting a set of manacles made-” Megatron sprang up, heavy engine thrumming as if in anticipation of a long-awaited battle “-but of course there would be no time to gild and inaly them appropriately. Besides, perhaps it would be too old fashioned? No, I have an even more delicious scenario in mind: Optimus Prime on his back in my berth, restrained with nothing but his own honor!”

It would work. Soundwave reflected as his Lord laughed maniacally in the background. Stoic submission was certainly consistent with the Prime’s behavior matrix, no sacrilege intended.

Still, there was a manic edge to Megatron’s mien tonight - the pacing, the outbursts of obviously known but long-repressed fantasy. Altogether it indicated… a kind of nervousness.

Understandable, perhaps, considering who was involved. And clearly his Lord had already racked his processor for some appropriate preparations.

Soundwave was bold enough to let out a polite sort of engine cough when there was a convenient break in the ranting.

“Soundwave: suggests... candles.” 

Megatron brought himself up short. “Oh yes. He likes _human_ things, doesn’t he? And the throne room lighting has long been inadequate. Procure some, won’t you Soundwave?”

Given a direct order, Soundwave made ready to turn around and leave only to find his Lord’s servo’s clamped onto his shoulder plating, the other brandishing a crystal decanter of fizzy purple high-grade. 

“But first, a toast! To Decepticon superiority,-” he smirked “-and burnt rubber!” 

True, Soundwave reflected, this entire plan and peace treaty had a respectable chance of going up in flames but at least he’d get a servo around Jazz’s back tires in the meanwhile. Hopefully without being stabbed.

Dwelling a little further on that line of probability, Soundwave downed his cube of high-grade with unfeigned enthusiasm and then made his escape.

When Rumble and Frenzy learned that their mission was to break into a Pottery Barn inventory warehouse and steal as many extra tall candles as they could subspace they almost threw up their dinner ration with glee.

\---///----

Optimus Prime read Megatron’s message stating the final condition for the Autobot/Decepticon peace treaty. Then he read it again. 

Honestly he hadn't predicted anything... like that. Surely this was ...an unexpected development. But unlike many of Megatron’s prior requests (“Give in already!”, “Stop resisting me!”, “Die!”) it wasn’t… altogether unreasonable.

By the time his processor had nearly finished rationalizing the spark-instinctual 'yes’ (that peace was worth any price and a little personal discomfort was no barrier to the end of their war and the restoration of their species) his console chimed a second time, signaling an addendum to the message.

It only said:

“ _And bring Jazz._ ”

Meanwhile, Jazz, taking a certain human expression rather too far to spark, spared Optimus the bother of sending him a comm by smoothly dropping out of an open vent in the back of the Prime’s office. 

Sauntering over, he looked at the screen - a courtesy, as he'd surely intercepted and scanned the missive already - and whistled. 

" _Wow_. Wild stuff, huh?" 

"Honestly, I had decided to acquiesce.” Optimus said, surprised that his voice came out even, as if he was handing down a duty roster. “And I was going to ask you to run interference with the others... However, I cannot in good countenance agree to this second condition. With the battlefield almost behind us, I would not take you into danger again." 

Jazz chuckled.

"Oh, _bossbot_. It's real cute how you think you could have left me out of this! One way or another. And look, I'm even on the guestlist now! No need to scratch up my nice new bumper coating on the Nemesis’ ceiling grates. Downright thoughtful of ol’ Megs!” he tapped a digit flirtatiously against his bottom lip “Though I suspect a 'superior ' mind at work here." 

Optimus ex-vented. True, Jazz would have followed him one way or another. Still, the ethical ramifications-

“Now I can see you stewing your great big noble helm about it. Not much of a hardship, really. You know I always thought it was a shame Interrogations never properly got our mitts on Mr. Tall, Dark, and Obnoxious-Gremlin-Carrier. And now I get the perfect chance for a little one-on-one time…” Jazz’s visible faceplate took on a worryingly dreamy cast “Always did wonder if that eject button was sensitive-”

Optimus attempted a diplomatic puff from his smokestacks. It was summarily ignored.

“Still, gotta say, feelin’ a little insulted here! Lord Buckethead’s slinging mad nerve saying ‘Bring Jazz’ like I’m a pretty basket of oilcakes and not even adding anything nice to the treaty to sweeten the pot. Figure a spin of my tracklist’s gotta at least be worth a timeshare on an energon mine or two! How about you run that by him, bossbot?” 

Still rather gripped by the unreality of the situation, and therefore especially susceptible to his TIC’s outrageous ideas, Optimus typed out a dry, polite missive suggesting that a request for a second high-ranking Autobot to reprimand himself into Decepticon custody for 12 hours would logically necessitate a secondary gesture of good faith.

He attached the location of a known Decepticon-owned mine and a hastily drafted ‘swing-shift’ schedule.

The proposal was granted. Immediately. 

So Megatron _was_ serious.

Over his shoulder Jazz’s visor lit up in an ‘intrigued’ configuration, plush lips stretching into a multifaceted grin. 

"Hook, line, and sinker, bossbot. Real tempted to ask for Starscream’s head on a plate and the keys to the Nemesis while he’s jonesin’ this bad. But hey, you know what. Strategically? This wouldn’t be the worst thing we’ve ever tried.”


	2. Ratchet Isn't Fooled For A Second

The date of the proposed ‘negotiation’ approached. 

Meanwhile the ceasefire plodded on - Autobot and Decepticon crews walked warily past each other in the distance every 48 hours, the ground troops puzzled but intrigued over the shared access to the energon mine. 

Optimus stood at the rail of an observation deck and tried not to anticipate the proposed event one way or the other. It was simply time to do his part, to secure a more lasting agreement before cautious hope curdled into suspicion and the curiously apt human expression of ‘waiting for the other shoe to fall.’

“-hey.” Jazz said somewhere down by his elbow “Hey, Orion-” 

"Yes?" Optimus answered, daringly.

It was Jazz, after all. One of the few who even knew his old designation, let alone was cheeky enough refer to him as such.

Responding to it felt like some sweet act of personal rebellion. He was honored and humbled by Primacy, but sometimes also crushed under it.

It was an indulgence, to momentarily sidestep into a world where he and Jazz had perhaps only been conscripted as Autobots and it was due to the war that he was in a new frame with an ax and a blaster and the humming wisdom of the ancients grafted right above his spark. Yes, the fantasy rather fell apart there…

How odd, again, that what Megatron had requested of him was so… ordinary.

"Hey, you in there? Pal?" 

"Forgive me. I was… daydreaming."

“Well as I was saying, my mech, remember long before this lil’ ol’ ruckus you said how your early shift was grindin’ you down and you wanted to shake it up a bit and I said I'd take you out? How we'd get real garish temp paint jobs and go to funky oilhouses with weird fuel mixes and dance with strangers and really cut loose? I'd teach you how to do Praxian pole twirls and we'd pick up some action and maybe hardline some pretty mechs in the backroom. You remember that?" 

Optimus felt his lips quirk under the battlemask.

"Only with some effort, I'm afraid." 

A few cycles after that conversation, when he'd felt on the edge of something yawning and new, he’d thought that it was only the impending loss of his inhibitions. Then the Decepticon bomb had landed on the docks and he had both lost and gained far more than he ever thought possible.

"So… maybe this is the universe’s way of nudging us back on track. Couple mil’ late, but I’ll take it!”

"I hardly believe delivering ourselves into Megatron and Soundwave’s un-tender mercies will be the same as a wild night out in the entertainment district."

Jass, ever unrepentant, winked broady, half-transformed his wheels down to his pedes and did a neat little series of spins around his commander’s larger frame.

"Hey, it might be! If we do it right~”

Rather pointedly Optimus handed his irrepressible friend a datapad with an adjusted schedule which ensured that there was a chain of command for the Intelligence division and the Autobot forces as a whole while both Prime and TIC were considered ‘away-from-base’ for ‘urgent peace treaty negotiations.’ He really did feel guilty double-booking Ironhide, Ratchet, and Prowl like this but then again it was good to have procedures in place for the both of them taking leave simultaneously. Perhaps with the incipient peace he and Jazz could partake in wholesome human traditions like ‘camping’ and ‘road trips’ once they were done selling their favors to the enemy.

Rather taking the hint, Jazz reviewed the documents and duty rosters for a peaceful span of time. Then he resumed fidgeting. Incidental spikes of some nebulous worry bleeding through his EM field, either due to Optimus’ preternatural sensors or his own lowered guard. 

“Do you have some comment for me, old friend?”

"Hmm, just that our esteemed future ally- Well. Subtle, he ain’t.” Sighing Jazz dragged his servos down his faceplate and then looked up at Optimus with equal parts fond exasperation and real concern “He's probably gonna ask to spike you." 

"I _had_ gathered as much.” Optimus said gently. “Frankly, I would be very surprised if he asked." 

A knowing flicker of darker blue made its way across his visor and then, duty discharged, Jazz shifted right back into distraction mode, smirking saucily and tapping one of his audial horns.

"So you just gotta to give me all the deets afterward! Like, is he bad in berth? A mach-5 finisher, ruined from too many nights of hoping to get it over with before Starscream shrieks out another couple-a paragraphs?"

To his credit, Optimus did not laugh. It was hardly sporting to mock Starscream’s damaged vocalizer (or perhaps he had been forged with it like that? Well. Primus dealt in variety... ), and while it was very kind of Jazz to attempt to break the tension Optimus couldn’t quite agree with his tack.

It was hard to find any evidence to support his most formidable opponent being bad in berth at all. 

Stamina, he had in spades, unfortunately. He was attentive. At least in the sense that he remembered Optimus’ attack patterns and weak points. Actually, during one not-too-distant battle they had slipped while grappling and fallen down a gravel hillside into an empty quarry. And while he had been disoriented Megatron had put his knee into some fiendish gladiator arm-lock and ruthlessly drawn his fingers across his wheel well, pressing the thick digits deep in between the spokes of his rims.

It had been a distraction. Of course. But his touch had been sure and knowing all the same.

And of course there were several rumors with varying degrees of substantiation that a much sought-after reward for top Decepticon warriors was a summons for a night-cycle in their Lord’s quarters. 

_Well, at least I will have the benefit of someone’s expertise_ Optimus thought, very reasonably. 

Oh yes it was entirely reasonable, the way he was handling this. Perhaps less reasonable was the suggestion from his cooling system, asking if he’d at least like to turn his fans to a higher setting. 

It was his own fault, really. Orion Pax had been quite the reader on his shift breaks and the literature he could afford on a dockworker’s salary was rather coarsely frank about its characters’ erotic entanglements. In that light what he had agreed to undertake for the Autobot cause could be misconstrued as the plot of one of those two-shanix dreadfuls...

Optimus smiled ruefully, unaware that his mask was still down or that Jazz had faded quietly into the background, watching him.

At least historical precedent was broadly on his side. Hadn’t one of the earlier Primes walked into an Insecticon hive to participate in one of their fertility rituals for the sake of peace?

Now that the die was cast, some part of him wanted to switch places with her.

Another was already clutching the forthcoming night to his chest. Whatever happened, it would be his own. His own ridiculous, individual folly. His own precious mistake.

\---///---

On the evening before the night they were ambushed on their way out of the wash racks. A certain medic’s weighty presence filling the hallway in a way his sturdy red and white frame couldn’t quite manage.

“Well?! Are you two done getting all dolled up?”

Jazz stepped forward smoothly, putting his servos up and wiggling them around in a placating gesture, as if they could somehow distract from the decidedly unusual sight of the enormous and freshly detailed frame of his commander behind him.

“Hey now, these are important treaty negotiations Ratch! We can’t exactly go tracking mud on Ol Megs’ throne room carpet-“

“Quit selling ‘cause I ain’t buying.” Ratchet warned.

Stepping around the intelligence officer the medic unceremoniously grabbed Optimus by the elbow (though taking care to place his digits away from the fresh coat of polish), and dragged him two doors down into the medbay and behind an iron privacy screen.

“Open up.” he snapped. “I’m going to upgrade your firewalls.” 

“I hardly think-” Optimus protested. There was an all-too-knowing look in the medic’s eye.

“Nyep- Save it! I know nothing. I’m just a concerned medic. Specifically concerned about the base rate of ancient Tarnian virus proliferation-”

“I hardly anticipate-“

“I know.” Ratchet looked up at him quite seriously for a moment and then brandished a scanner and continued his rather staged tirade. “But times like this I really wish you would! Hardlining isn’t just for bar pickups and busy conjuxes you know!”

Optimus had a vague sensation of deja-vu and a real and profound regret that the Autobot base’s floor was not the ancient streets of Iacon city, which would transform away and allow any individual with Prime-level encoding to sink through the planet down into the Core at their leisure.

‘Really…’ heard Ratchet mutter in the hardly-audible range as he bustled around, picking through a case of soft rotary buffers ‘Like a glitchicorn into the toxityger’s den.’

Optimus took a moment to ponder whether he should feel offended. After all, he was not altogether unfamiliar with the particulars. But even in the midst of a distinctly youngling-like mortification he was wise enough to know that this was simply Ratchet’s way of showing loving concern. 

Stoically the Matrix-bearer submitted to a gently impersonal but triply thorough cleaning of firewall code as well as his interface port covers, and after that it was almost a relief to meet Jazz at the hanger door and start driving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes, I've made G1 Optimus Prime into a stoic Victorian heroine


	3. Chapter 3

It was sunset as they arrived. Optimus tried not to read any prophetic meaning into this, if anything the earth night-cycle was short and dawn would come quickly no matter what transpired. 

Actually the red and blue sky overhead was rather beautiful, and the last rays of sun stripped some of the harshness out of the angular entrance of the Decepticon compound. When they entered, the halls were clean, low-lit, and empty at least until Soundwave materialized suddenly out of a side door.

Jazz appeared entirely nonplussed, miming putting his servos into nonexistent pockets and looking back at Optimus with a jaunty wink as he rolled over to his rival’s side.

“Well, bossbot. Looks like this is my stop.” 

It appeared there would be no bother with preliminaries. But also no sudden reversal of terms, no public spectacle. As far as Soundwave’s designs towards Jazz were concerned, Optimus had come prepared to issue a firm warning, an expectation of fair conduct. But, then again, they all needed to believe in each other’s better selves tonight.

And, as he stepped close enough for the Matrix to get a read on Soundwave’s spark he was surprised to find it wobbling nervously under his impassive visage and freshly polished plating.

“Hello, Soundwave. I hope you have been well.” he said simply.

“Prime” The Decepticon TIC inclined his helm respectfully and gestured further down the hallway “My lord: is expecting you.”

As he walked steadily down the hallway and to the edge of the heavy door at the end Optimus Prime received two comms on his personal frequency.

_‘--//Hey, let’s knock em’ dead!//--’_

_‘--//Jazz: will not be harmed//--’ ___

____

____

\---///---

As he skipped ahead down the creepy dark corridor (It could be argued that the lowered frequency on the obnoxious purple halogens set into the ceiling constituted ‘mood’ lighting but ow, _weaksauce_ ) Jazz pondered a great many things.

A) Did this color of ambient light make his plating look good? 

B) What the fresh purple Pit did Megatron have in store for Orion

C) How was he going to crack open this tall drink of engex who’d totally blown his ‘cool and collected’ cover by being stupid enough to volunteer to be locked in a room alone with _Jazz_. All night. Doing port stuff. Which left the most hardened mechanism’s emotional subsystem compromised as frag, pun fully intended.

A distant H) or J) was ‘where was Soundwave actually leading him?’ but he figured he’d find out soon enough. 

Now, horny rank-and-file rumors maintained that the Decepticons had to have a kinky sex dungeon. I mean, _look_ at them. Right?

Jazz knew for a fact that they didn’t have the budget for it. Any much-speculated custom interface toys probably stayed in Shockwave’s lonely tower where they were created,and any such available ‘dungeon’ space would soon be appropriated by Starscream for his science experiments and thus eventually blown up

But no, as they passed the bits marked ‘residential quarters’ on Jazz’s recon plans of the base, it appeared that Soundwave was taking him to his actual hab suite. Which, as the door slid back smoothly, Jazz saw that he had de-cassetified and cleaned up for the occasion.

Groovy.

I mean, having all the gremlins in attendance would have made for a totally different vibe to this whole thing.

The intel piled on: the hab suite walls were a dull aubergine. A plush overstuffed armchair stood in the corner in a cutely domestic callback to Megatron’s throne obsession. Even after a spirited attempt at dusting it had oilcake crumbs caught in the cushions. The wings had clearly been used as perches for Buzzsaw and Lazerbeak because the stuffing was coming out.

Soundwave stood at attention against this backdrop. Looming. Enormous. Nervous as slag.

Jazz mentally cracked his knuckles and stepped forward.

"So. You requested me, huh? Me, out of everyone. Lil’ old me. _Personally_.” He gave a cute little shimmy “You liiiiike me, dontcha Sounders. You wanna see what makes my headlights sparkle and my insides tick~”

“Ticking from Jazz: likely a micro-explosive.”

Jazz cracked a genuine giggle at that. He hadn’t expected to laugh much tonight. 

“Aww and he’s got pretty good jokes too! So, big fella, you gonna give me the tour?”

“This: Soundwave’s habsuite.” 

“Pfff. Short and sweet, I like it!”

\---///---

Soundwave looked at the giggling Autobot in his living room and began to feel like the proper order of things was sliding out from under his pedes. There he was, in his own lair, (in hindsight, a terrible strategic error) clearly about to be subjected to a bizarre counter-interrogation.

“Jazz: stalling. Terms: unsatisfactory?” he queried, in a last-ditch effort to re-establish who had the power here.

“Oh no, _no_ , my mech. By all means, let’s Peace Treaty Terms It Uppp in here!” 

In a fresh and devastating stratagem, a syrupy, sensuous Praxian club song began to play out of his captive’s speakers and then Jazz - the Autobot Assassin, terror of lone scouts and distracted guards, herded Soundwave into his own easy chair and then unceremoniously crawled into his lap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my friend who I emailed portions of this story to for encouragement described each of the messages as: 
> 
> Soundwave: //I am nervous and slightly feeble, but he'll be okay and safe uwu//
> 
> Jazz: //BEECH, wE🤖🤖 goNna DO👅👅😜 it to Em🍆🍆🍆💫💫👯//


	4. Jazz Ruins A Chair

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here is where the self-indulgent Explicitness(TM) starts. Please tell me if I did the robo-porn right, it's my first attempt~

Jazz had a surprising weight to him. 

Up close Soundwave could perceive a vague chem trail from a built-in blowtorch that was concealed under his forearm plating. Substantiated intel confirmed that the slender frame settling so casually into the cradle of his hips was replete with hidden horrors. The awareness of this in no way impeded Soundwave’s rising charge.

“Now, normally this is the part where I tell the customers they can look but not touch. But just for you Sounders, imma be nice~” Jazz crooned, suddenly too close to his audial.

And then he started to move.

There was a profound surreality to the experience. Unconsciously, Soundwave had dimmed all the habsuite lights except for the one over the chair. It looked like the light was drowning Jazz as he danced, the purple overtaking the white of his plating, outlining his every seam, marking him as a thing to be savored and possessed.

When Soundwave’s digits, scraping and woefully tentative, ghosted over his sides to cup the front of his bumper Jazz let out a breathy little sigh. 

“There ya go-” 

The tempo of his oscillations changed, hips and upraised arms swaying slowly, thighs flexing while his chest stayed stationary, pushing into Soundwave’s touch. As if magnetized, he drew his warm palms over the other mech’s headlights. Squeezed. 

Jazz threw his helm back, every line arching in honest enjoyment.

“ _Mmm!_ ”

It was almost _more_ gratifying to proceed slowly. How must hundreds if not thousands of others have enjoyed the frame whirthing so gratuitously in his lap? Were they tempted to take everything all at once? Did they clumsily paw at his aft and panel, leave dents in the deceptively undelicate thighs? How could he distinguish himself? It could not be enough to simply _take_ this mechanism, Soundwave wanted to _have_ him.

As if sensing his deliberations, Jazz gave a particularly suggestive grind down, stopping just above his heated pelvic plating and looked up at Soundwave with a coy pout. 

“Don’t be shy, baby~ You’re so big I’m gonna need the warm-up.”

Soundwave’s engine revved - a low rumble but into a higher gear. An arc of charge crackled from his knee joint into the other mech. This seemed to please Jazz, his field uncoiled a little, rich amusement flecked with streaks of genuine or expertly faked desire. But he was a consummate professional, the song was still playing, and pride would not permit him to stop.

As he swayed, helpless and unresisting, Soundwave began the slow and methodical mapping of his frame - light strokes in time with the motions of the dance, collecting the slightest scrapes of paint - grill, waist, thighs, aft. 

His patience was rewarded. When the song ended Jazz’s game face was firmly on but he was sipping air through his petroleum-glossed lips. Soundwave’s servos were dusted with flakes of white.

Two sets of cooling fans, both modded for stealth, hummed in the heated space between them. 

“So,” Jazz leaned up, one servo boldly braced on the chair next to Soundwave’s shoulder cannon “are you gonna kiss me? I was kinda hoping for it.”

“Kissing: not mentioned in treaty terms.” 

“Pretty please, though? Kiss me and I'll polish something of yours. Like hmm… your visor?-”Soundwave jerked his helm in vehement negative, that was far too close to his vulnerable optics “-Your pedes?” 

"Spike: preferred." Soundwave said dryly, or at least attempted to, before his vocalizer crackled and dropped half an octave. 

How Primus-damned inconvenient - none of his recordings were adequate for this sort of situation. Still, he may have been a basic warframe but he had _some_ class. He would not subject a frustrating, but respected enemy to clips of overcharged Seekers whisper-screeching from supply closets. 

“Hey, I like a mech who knows what he wants! Gonna have to insist on that kiss though.”

Soundwave had made no explicit plans for this encounter. (Explicit fantasies and professionally inappropriate daydreams, yes.) Anyway, no plan survived first contact with the enemy. Especially _this_ enemy.

Was he being toyed with? He broke one of his own rules and let an exploratory telepathic flicker skitter across Jazz’s surface processor.

But the request seemed sincere. 

It was a surprisingly easy thing, to comply.

He put his rough palms on the insides of the other mech’s knees, firmly this time, and slid them upward, scraping, leaving lightning trickles of charge behind him - inner thighs, waist, grill, catching on his headlights again.

True, his opponent had the benefit of experience and a strong opening salvo. But he was _superior_. He would not be helpless here.

As he pressed, unexpectedly, into the plating gaps under Jazz’s arms and the other mech fell against him, gasping, Soundwave snapped open his mask and dove in.

\---///---

What felt like a small age later they disengaged, Jazz humming smugly through wet lips and and running his servo down Soundwave’s far-too-exposed-feeling jawline. 

Soundwave didn’t know whether he wanted to lick the thinner digits or bite them in warning. As if sensing that, Jazz leaned back and tucked them under his chin. 

“Now, baby, if you want that polish you’re gonna hafta show me what I’m working with.” 

Soundwave’s burning frame and interfacing protocols agreed that this was a most excellent course of action. He had imagined this particular act in berth but the current setting was… appealing. Given the all-clear his spike cover retracted smoothly. In a fit of paranoia he’d re-oiled the hinges that morning.

Jazz slid down in a liquid tumble, like something out of a holovid, settling at the base of the chair between Soundwave’s legs. Audaciously he darted in and dipped his glossa into the damp and unfurling spike slit and barely avoided being crushed by the bigger mech’s thighs. 

Soundwave’s spike pressurized so quickly he could almost feel himself losing volume in his energon lines.

“Jazz: may proceed.” he said, vocalizer dropping out at its lowest setting.

But Jazz was already there. 

He didn’t show off, that was the thing Soundwave noticed when his processor was back online after a hazy couple klicks. Temporarily tucked away were the pleasurebot tricks. Instead he hummed and licked and applied himself diligently, as if this was a treasured hobby, as if the only thing his night had been missing was a spike slightly too big for him pushing into his intake and distending the fine gray mesh of his cheek. 

Soundwave’s servos wanted to reach out and feel the slight bulge of it but they were digging new furrows into the arms of his shabby chair and he couldn’t seem to move them.

Just as he was reaching the edge Jazz pulled off with an obscene pop, both servos wrapped around the base in consolation, petting and squeezing approvingly.

“Mmm, seriously, not bad.” 

Soundwave’s contribution at this point was sitting back strutlessly and panting. 

Jazz rolled his weight back on his heels and stretched, cracking his neck cables, as if preparing for some athletic feat. He seemed almost composed despite his spit-shiny faceplate and a suspicious sheen to his inner thighs.

“ _Right_.” he said “I’m gonna need that pretty thing from the other end now.” 

An overheat warning pinged on Soundwave’s HUD. 

“Jazz: requires further preparation.” he managed, strangled.

Jazz looked Soundwave in the optic, visor to visor.

There was the sound of a panel snapping open. 

And then he took his sticky servos, plunged them into the soft black mesh of his revealed and dripping valve, and pulled out a long pearlescent false-spike whose proportions would have put nearly anyone to shame. It glistened obscenely before he dropped it off to the side with a negligent flick of the wrist. 

“Sorry, my mech.” he purred “I mighta lied about the warm up.”

Soundwave lost control.

Jazz was wriggling and laughing as he was lifted, Soundwave’s roaring engine and fans nearly drowning him out in the stillness of the room. 

He plunged his glossa into that smiling, awful mouth. He wrenched his helm to the side, mouthing and biting blindly at the sensitive cabling as he settled him into position. The wet drag of his valve across Soundwave’s frame took up so much immediate memory he core-dumped entire portions of the week before.

Jazz gave a wicked little moan as his transformation sequence kicked in, hip joints unhinging to fit their incompatibilities perfectly together. A lightning bolt of ungrounded charge lanced through the two of them and took out the overhead light.

Then there was nothing but his molten, abandoned warmth and the triumphant flash of his grin in the dark. 

\---///---

When he was aware of anything Soundwave was acutely aware that maybe he was every overcharged Decepticon stereotype those first few dozen thrusts; barrelling, hungry, and rough. It was so much, and so good. Jazz was so warm in his lap. Jazz’s valve had pretty little textured bumps alongside the arrays of mercilessly flexing calipers and even on the first stroke he had slid in deep. 

Still, long as it had been, the false spike was shorter than him, and when he had fragged the other mech open enough to hit the irised seal of his gestation chamber every other stroke (Jazz hissing and spitting static, digits scraping against his windshield) Soundwave decided it was time for a more sophisticated approach.

The next time he had him down deep Soundwave held him there until he whined. And then he began to grind up, soft shallow thrusts, delicate little figure eights, his arms a vice around Jazz’s torso, pinning him to his proper place.

A lower-pitched but rather more urgent set of sounds were his reward for this manoeuvre.

There, that was better. Something slow and methodical to suit himself, tricky and intricate to suit his partner. A slow, dragging stroke against a noted inner cluster got him Jazz’s fist pounding into his side.

“F-frag! _Get on it_ , mech!” 

Compelled (threatened) into mercy, Soundwave worked his heavy servo down between them just enough that Jazz could catch his node on it if he strained. Jazz moaned, gratefully. His visor was getting brighter and brighter above his bitten lips.

For all his protests he clenched happily around Soundwave’s spike as he was taken, dripping lubricant so generously over his pelvic housing that Soundwave could feel it working down into the seams of his valve cover, inside, to join his own dammed-up slick.

This was a fact that, once known, could not be withstood for long. 

Venting heavily, Soundwave activated the emergency latch of his shoulder cannon. It detached, rolling away with a heavy thunk, giving his stiff, heavy frame just enough reach so that he could bend down and take a black sensory horn between his lips.

That was sufficient.

Jazz overloaded with a scream. 

A scream that trailed off into a less perceivable frequency where it continued to ring clear and crystalline until his engine stalled and a delicate stream of white coolant smoke came out of his intake.

Shaking with spark-deep satisfaction, tanks emptying out, Soundwave recorded every nano of it.

A little while later he stood up out of the chair, Jazz’s head lolling slightly against his chest, and walked them to the berth. Every step jolted his spike inside it’s slack and rippling new home, Jazz making low engine whines and clutching at his shoulders like some romance novel femme.

But when he found the presence of mind to look down, just at the edge of his field of vision, he could see that the Autobot was smirking into the glass of his deck. Even Jazz’s field had already bounced back from fritzed, heavy pleasure and was all coiled up again, warm and expectant.

_Ah_. So he could proceed then. 

With brutal efficiency, he pulled the other mech off his spike and flipped him over, pushing his helm and shoulders down, getting a firm grip on the outside of his hips.

Soundwave had been resource-starved for most of his functioning, he knew it was important to savor good things as he received them. So he took a moment to savor the sight in front of him.

Then he took a second helping of his prize.

\---///---

“Query: what is Jazz thinking?” 

Soundwave said it as much for his own benefit, as to kill the silence before it became uncomfortable. Post-overload often made him too reflective of the finished encounter, its potential drawbacks and benefits, and since tonight was technically his reward he would prefer to simply feel and enjoy. 

He was not greedy enough to expect more, nor would he deny a technical prisoner a recharge cycle after working his frame so thoroughly. Even inert Jazz could not help but be engaging, there would be hours before dawn to look at him and memorize key details...

Anyway, Soundwave had done his best, and flatly set any awareness of the worry churning through his staggeringly empty tanks to auto-kill. Only time would tell if his performance was enough to recommend him as a future candidate for any peacetime dalliance, as was his fervent hope.

“Oooh, can’t you do your little trick and find out?”

“Telepathic interrogation: does not seem currently appropriate.” Soundwave demurred. 

They were in berth, Jazz having wound himself lazily into the micromesh top sheet in such a way that somehow his pedes were covered and his aft was not, Soundwave trying to give him a gentlemechly semblance of space.

“Oh, yannow, nothing much. Just wondering how the other team’s getting on.”

“Jazz: concerned for superior officer?”

“Hey, after all the time our Prime’s spent punching him through asteroids and whatnot, you’re gonna tell me your guy’s gonna be _nice_?”

“Soundwave: cannot fully predict Megatron’s behavior. However, Prime: respected opponent. Desire to impress: present.”

“ _Uh huh_. And how about just plain ol’ desire? That’s gotta be the worst kept secret-“

Soundwave felt compelled to defend his lord and amica. 

“Soundwave: is aware. Jazz: is aware. Nothing further to be discussed.” 

“Then that’s gotta be good enough for now. Well, it _better_. Anyway,-” Jazz flopped back against his berthmate theatrically. Likely in a bid to get out of the wet spot, but his warmth was gratifying all the same. “-this whole war’s turned me into a real worrywort. Can’t say I dig it.”

“Soundwave’s opinions: similar. Impending peace: significantly decreases chances of future symbiote deactivation.”

As soon Soundwave blurted it out he felt an acute urge to self-mute for an entire joor. Then again, Jazz absolutely had a file on him and his emotional attachment to his cassettes was doubtless well-catalogued under ‘Known Weaknesses: Exhibit A.’ Hopefully tonight would cause him to add a compelling addendum or two in a whole other category.

“Awww, Sounders, you big softy.” Jazz gave him a fond pat on the windshield, half genuine and half in consolation for slipping up. “Anyway, roll over wouldya? I feel like I’m not earning my energon mine.”

Soundwave was a clever mech.

He knew the operating parameters.

He knew when to deploy, when to retreat. When to blackmail, when to build trust. When to intervene, and when to let things run their course. When to lie back, wrap his servos around the shiny polished rims of his rival’s wheels, and just hang on.


	5. Jazz Ruins Other Things

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did this story really need another chapter of self-indulgent Jazzwave bits? no? probably not? Too bad, here you go.

He had definitely thought Jazz would recharge after that. But no. Having finished, he bounced off, drank a cool half of the desperately needed fuel cube that Soundwave offered to him (after taking the requisite first sip to show it wasn’t poisoned), and cycled his visor coyly through a series of firework animations.

“So, hey, you know for rounds three-to-whatever, how about we switch it up a little?”

Both to Soundwave’s vague relief and consternation they settled in to play cards.

The living room work table, usually a casualty of cassette messiness, might gain a whole new memory association considering Jazz immediately leaned back on one of the simple chairs and propped his pedes up. Without bothering to close his modesty paneling.

“Doesn’t seem much point, does there?” he purred, accurately tracking the trajectory of Soundwave’s gaze. “Something tells me you ain’t done with me yet~”

Soundwave did not argue the point. After all, it was an accurate assessment. Given the low probability of replicating the circumstances of their current proximity (the end to an eons-long civil war was not a frequent occurrence) he was determined to gather as many data points as possible. 

“Distraction: only moderately effective.” He warned.

“Hey, I’ll take it.”

Jazz lost the first game, doubtless to soften him up for some further ploy, but Soundwave enjoyed taking his forfeit.

“Query: what is purpose?” Soundwave intoned dolefully, half a groon later, when Jazz felt safe enough to win a hand of Praxian poker and then gleefully sidled up to Soundwave’s front and started pressing the buttons on his pelvic span.

“Sorry, my mech, is this a trifle objectifyin’? I mean I still got your transfluid all in my-”

Soundwave’s vents gave a stutter at that. He made no further moves to stop him.

“Really?” Jazz pouted a few minutes later “They’re _really_ not sensitive? Whatta shame!“

They were, actually. Especially the ones Soundwave didn’t use as often. ‘Pause,’ for example, was woefully underutilized given his crop of cassettes, but he had whimsically decided that he would attempt to conceal this fact from his rival as a matter of one-upmanship.

Soundwave was unsure what the tone of their encounter was going to be and after perhaps some initial lustful clumsiness on his part, it was surprisingly… convivial.

Meanwhile he snuck one look down at Jazz, who was, again, _there_ , sticky, very much debauched, but still gamely energetic and far too close to Soundwave’s vital fuel lines. And who had just substantiated his every concern re:said fuel lines by fishing out a narrow bit of Earth plastic (that could easily be ground into a shiv against a holding cell wall) and probing in between the ‘Play’ button and its’ setting, caressing a bundle of sensors underneath.

With heroic effort, Soundwave did not react.

Undaunted, Jazz licked the surface of the probe, coating it generously with oral lubricant and repeated the motion. Then he tried to slip the tip of his glossa into the now-lustfully-gaping seam and Soundwave was forced to concede and push him away before his every strut buckled and gave out.

“Gotcha!~” Jazz grinned toothily up at him. “Gonna make me pay for that?”

Soundwave realized that he was, once again, very conveniently positioned.

Carefully he put a heavy servo on the side of Jazz’s helm and made an interrogative sort of noise. The irrepressible spy chucked and gamely shuffled forward.

Soon Soundwave found himself catching his second wind, circling the base of the other mech’s sensory horns in little dragging motions, then pressing down on them slightly as he tried to keep his thrusts shallow.

Jazz whined and moaned, more performatively than he’d done the first time Soundwave had made him suck his spike. ‘Depraved pleasure drone’ was back on the docket and he seemed to be enjoying playing the role to the hilt, as it were. Soundwave could see no reason to deprive him of his fun.

When Jazz opened his intake up and tugged impatiently at the back of Soundwave’s thigh he obliged and shoved in deeper, which got him an approving rev of the engine and an almost patronizing pat to the hip.

‘-// There. Good job, Sounders~//-’ was sent to his private frequency. Sometime since he’d waltzed through the door Jazz had hacked it. ‘-// _That’s_ what I like//-’

“Jazz: d-deserves this for impertinence.” Definitely time for self-muting. He sounded altogether too wrecked to his own audials.

Proving his point, Jazz pulled off entirely and winked.

“Damn right I do!”

Soundwave trembled and shook, barely remaining upright.

Jazz wiped his intake, went back to the table, and picked up his stack of cards.

Somewhere through the epic processor haze of yet another overload, Soundwave felt a deep and abiding sense of trepidation.

\---///---

“Jazz: does not require recharge?” he said half in query half in admiration as he managed to get himself back down in his chair without some embarrassing motor malfunction. Truthfully Soundwave himself hadn’t had a full recharge cycle for his last few down shifts either. Too busy running possible scenarios with their trees of possible outcomes in preparation, something that on a lesser mechanism might have been anxious overprocessing.

Jazz’s field flared with amusement. 

“Baby, this ain’t a _sleepover_. You requested the full package, and you’re getting it~ Anyway, how about we make this next set of hands even more interesting? Ever heard of strip poker?”

“Soundwave: familiar with human practice. Soundwave: also has no garments to remove.”

“Oh, I figure you could stand to lose an attachment or two.” Jazz said faux-casually, thumbing the edge of his cards. 

Ah. Soundwave did still have his visor, and after that initial round of worryingly intimate kisses he had snapped his mask shut as he’d turned the other mech over. While his field and frame doubtless betrayed the extent of his reactions, the physical barriers remained a comfort in this unfamiliar territory.

Suddenly pinging on high alert, Soundwave’s instincts suggested that this ploy was the keystone of the night, the very reason Jazz had agreed to surrender himself as a bargaining chip.

He was on dangerous ground.

But… the chance! The sight of Jazz’s uncovered optics was a piece of information that Soundwave had desired in a heavy visceral sense nearly as much as first-hand knowledge of the texture and taste of his valve. To think he could have both in one night, if he played his cards right...

A comfortingly logical-sounding processor thread insidiously suggested that due to him still having both mask and visor he had double the chances to win.

He agreed, before he could hesitate. They drew cards. 

Soundwave lost his mask.

Too late, he realized he had less practice controlling facial micro-tells without it. 

“Hey, we can stop-”

Soundwave shook his helm in vehement negative. 

“You _really_ wanna get your mitts on my shades that bad?”

“Soundwave: has beaten worse odds.”

But he didn’t beat them tonight. Their final hands were close enough to be equal, but not quite, Jazz flourishing his extra six with a chagrined frown. 

“Hey, this was me goofin’ around you know. You don’t hafta-”

Soundwave wasn’t sure why he began to raise his servos towards his helm. Motivations shuffled themselves around in his processor queue. If true peace was the consequence of the night, then the need for the Decepticons’ intimidating ‘faceless’ spymaster would gradually decrease. The peripherals he hid behind would no longer be needed. Would he be able to take them off, when the time came? Perhaps he wanted to prove that he could. 

The click on his visor’s auto-lock disengaging was very loud in the room, even the lightest pressure could now remove it.

“Deception: often necessary to secure victory. Honor: also has its place.” 

Soundwave was not even sure what he was trying to explain. Himself, maybe. 

Quick as a knife in the dark Jazz sprung out of his chair, his servos overlaying Soundwave’s on either side of his temples.

“Stop! Listen... in the interest of future peace and all, I uhhh, I feel like I better admit that I cheated.”

Relief left him weak. Without oversight his traitorous, grateful vocalizer spat out the first thought at the top of his queue.

“Jazz: keeps many secrets. Soundwave: believes Jazz would be safe to give this one to.”

Jazz kissed him on the tip of his nose, even as his digits pressed Soundwave’s own over the visor lock, resetting it.

Then, very softly, the motion itself more like a caress, the Autobot punched him in the shoulder. 

“Geez, Sounders! You gotta warn a mech before you break out the cheese like this! You know this is already the farthest I’ve ever gone on a first date with just about anyone?”

For a klick or two the habsuite became home to a weighty silence. But silence had never stood a chance against either of them.

A hopeful slow waltz wandered back into Jazz’s ambient playlist. 

“So… that was a close call, huh!” he said, too brightly. ”You wanna dance? We got a little out of order there, but it’s on my ‘to-do’ list.”

They danced. Shuffled almost, fields settling. Eventually Jazz got bored and kicked up the pace, changing tracks, dragging an unresisting Soundwave closer and closer into his orbit, into his rhythm, until what they were doing could not be termed dancing by any classification, except in the seediest backrooms of Protihex, and needed only unspooled hardline cables to qualify as upright interface.

Feeling that this was both inefficient and insufficient, Soundwave picked up his apparent ‘first date’ and carried him back to the berth. 

“So... wanna spike me some more?” Jazz whispered hopefully into his audial. 

Soundwave did, and enjoyed it immensely, though perhaps the waltz had stayed with him, because it was a slower, softer thing.

Still, as night crept toward morning an inevitable sort of alchemy began to run its course. Truthfully, Soundwave was unused to this much sensually gratifying contact from anyone. His cassettes, who were surprisingly affectionate in private, saw him as their host and secondary home. Their tactile interactions were strictly platonic. Even his lord and amica, was, by necessity and social mores limited to the odd shoulder-rest, forearm-clasp, and pulling-one-out-of-the-way-of-blaster-fire. Soundwave was _definitely_ not used to this much repeated, processor-melting interface, being a private, guarded sort of mech, and frankly lacking the drive for it unless very specific individuals were concerned. 

Now, faced with this flood of abundance he ran a self-scan of his emotional processing subsystem and found himself to be thoroughly compromised. He was overwhelmed, nearly delirious on touch, circuits humming and overcharged off of Jazz’s teasing, unexpected affection.

At least that’s how the feared TIC of the Decepticon army found himself once again on his back in his own berth. Jazz was resting atop his chassis, as if washed up there by some potent tide, suspiciously limp and pliable. 

And then he was suddenly neither of those things.

“Query: what is Jazz doing?” Soundwave murmured at soft volume. 

He had been kliks away from recharge, which no longer quite seemed like the fatal error it might have been.

The answer seemed to be that Jazz was making his way down Soundwave’s frame, field buzzing and focused, for all that he was taking scenic detours. 

Soundwave raised his helm weakly just in time to see Jazz lick the row of rivets under the hinge of his cassette deck. All the while his digits were stroking, proprietary, across his aft and pelvic seams, the way you would handle a pretty racing model and not a big heavy thing.

Catching his optics, Jazz swirled his glossa around a bolt, flicking it, and looked meaningfully down.

“Well, I did say I had a ‘to-do’ list. Just trying to cross out item #2 here… You don’t _mind_ , do ya?” 

_Oh_. That was, _allowed_ , wasn’t it? Soundwave could just continue to lie here on the berth and the Autobot was going to be on his knees again. Technically, it was an act of service. 

This turned out to be a spectacular mistake. 

Jazz applied himself with practiced abandon - licking and humming and nosing in fascinated delight around a hidden ring of dark navy biolights just inside his most intimate seams. He took Soundwave right to the edge twice just to show that he could and on the third time, to the sweet background accompaniment of monotone-tuned cursing, he laughed and pushed him over. 

“You know, while I’m down here…” he said innocently, surfacing from between Soundwave’s knees.

Having already committed the cardinal sin of intimacy it seemed pointless to balk at penetration. Though Soundwave did hold out a fraction longer just to hear Jazz croon and implore:

“Gonna let me? I swear, I won’t tell a living spark. It’ll be our little secret~ I’ll even beg, how about that? Pretty please, Soundwave, let me frag your pretty little valve?” while laying little kisses against his outer lips and still-throbbing node. 

Eventually, he yielded with a shaky nod.

It was as bad as he expected. The Autobot opened him up - soft glides and pretty words like a gentlemech and then, when he was hilted and _in_ , the rotating mod in the middle of his spike began to pulse and spin.

Soundwave’s mask should have muffled some of the sounds he made, but judging by the Cheshire Cat smile floating below the blue light of the visor above him, it did not quite do enough.

When he was done tenderly rearranging Soundwave’s internals through the most intense valve-overload of his functioning Jazz pulled out, flourished a soft cloth out of subspace with a practiced motion, cleaned up, and then, shifting all eighteen tonnes of fellow spymaster surprisingly farther into berth, smugly spooned up behind him.

The last thing Soundwave committed to memory before he fell into recharge like a double blaster shot to the helm was Jazz softly tracing his ‘Play’ button and then pushing it down as if in a fond farewell.


	6. First Steps

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey remember this fic? Finishing anything writing-wise during this horrible bizarre year has been like pulling my own veins out with a curly straw. But I remember that I still owe y'all some MegOP. So enjoy these real dramatic fools bantering because they're both too nervous to get right down to business.

Optimus Prime stood in front of a set of double doors and, to his credit, didn’t hesitate. Later he wondered if he ought to have, if putting both servos on the handles and pulling them open without barely breaking a stride could have been taken for unseemly eagerness. But Megatron was there, inside the chamber. He could feel the other’s field as he approached, and it was just instinct at that point: to get closer, to stand between his foe and whatever he had set his sights on.

Of course what he seemed to be after this time was… Optimus himself, or rather the certain intimate qualities of his frame. Recalling _that_ nearly made him stumble.

But no, it was best to think of this as just another battle. If, of a rather different sort.

Beyond the doors, the chamber was ample and honeycombed in some sort of brutalist tile. There was a throne. He nearly sighed. Of course there was a throne. 

Megatron was standing in front of it, polished to a parade gloss over his usual collection of scars. A purple half-cape was draped with stylish negligence over his left pauldron. Optimus felt underdressed. Optimus’s tactical subroutines tried to ruin the mood by suggesting that it would be rather satisfying to pick Megatron up and throw him into something.

And there _was_ a mood to ruin. The chamber was covered in candles; clusters of them around the perimeter, two rows extending from the door to the steps at the base of the throne. The effect was as if they were standing inside the facets of a vast dark gem. It was... startling. And, in it’s own way, beautiful. Against the backdrop of flickering darkness, the uncompromising steel-gray of his rival’s frame was thrown into sharp relief. His deep crimson optics were brighter than the flames. 

“Megatron... I am here.” Optimus said solemnly, the words ringing out. 

“Optimus… so you’ve come.” Megatron answered in kind and for a nanoklik the chamber was home to the remnants of their combined voices. It felt...significant, like the start of some ceremony.

“I did give my word.” 

“ _That_ has always been a peerless currency-” the warlord’s expression slid into something sly “-though while I have your attention, I wonder if you could help me with a _theological_ question? Before we begin."

Optimus nodded warily. This was at least a little bit like their usual routine and, oddly, served to settle his nerves. Sometimes ( if things weren’t exploding too urgently) they managed to get half of a philosophical discussion in before falling down to grapple in the dirt. 

“Insofar as your religious duty, do you consider yourself Prime to the Decepticons as well? Even though we reject functionist dogma and the rule of the High Council?” 

"Functionism has no place among the Autobots, and the High Council has long since disbanded, but I remain the Prime to all Cybertronians. So, yes." 

Megatron grinned broadly.

"Aha, but you are incorrect! At present, and for the coming night cycle you are _my_ Prime. Mine alone. Surrendered so sweetly by your own hand!" 

Optimus felt his vents stutter.

_Oh blast._ This was a terrible time to remember that Megatron had once written poetry along with his manifestos, and that his cruel mouth with those sharp, faintly chipped detae knew its way around a sensuous word or two.

Megatron was stepping backwards as he spoke. With the low lighting it took a little time for Optimus to recognize what the recently constructed chamber was meant to evoke: the architecture copied from an ancient Temple to Mortilus - the slanted honeycombed ceiling converging on a single column in the back of the chamber, the throne at its base echoing the altar used for sacrifices.

Megatron sat down in it with an easy grace, without looking. His optics blazed softly in the dark.

"Come here, my Prime." he said. 

Optimus went.

“You know, this is nothing particularly untoward, where I come from. A successful match against a powerful enemy, after which neither party was too busy bleeding or needing limbs reattached, would often result in an... invitation. With the loser submitting, naturally!” He let out a low and purring laugh. “Here, I confess I may be cheating a little! But I should think that between us I have surely tallied enough victories to support such a request? The treaty only provided an additional... framework.”

‘Additional leverage’ more like. And yet he was telling him the truth. Something rather honest about himself, about the motivations that led them to this night, and Optimus was compelled to listen.

_In a way… is he’s telling me that he’s wanted this for a long time?!_

But he didn’t quite have time to process all of that. After all, Megatron had been given free reign and a captive audience so, naturally, he was still talking.

“And I suppose you, my esteemed opponent, have also taken victories enough to claim a share.” He paused, theatrically “Would you request it of me, I wonder?”

Optimus stood there at the base of the throne in his full dignity and said nothing, mostly because he hadn’t the faintest idea what to say.

“No.” Megatron went on blithely. It seemed he hadn’t been looking for an answer after all. “Something tells me that you wouldn’t. Somehow, I had always imagined your heroic resolve and your gleaming armor hiding quite _another_ set of needs. I had you pegged for a valve mech long ago. 

Well, Prime? Am I wrong? What would your adoring subordinates say, I wonder?”

That question, at least, Optimus knew the answer to. 

“There have already been too many Primes who abused their power over their people. I resolved that it would never be my way.“

(True, he had had his share of platonic comfort - the smaller frames of exhausted Autbots falling asleep in his arms, battlefield evacuees crowding his trailer, everyone hudded in some half-destroyed building or bunker against the acid rains. Even the occasional shared berth when the Ark carried refugees or was being repaired. In those cases he tried to impose himself on Ratchet, Jazz, or Ironhide - those who had known him before or whose view of Primus’ divine appointee wouldn't shatter at hearing him honk in his sleep. Once or twice it was some new recruit who, overawed, thanked him for the honor in the morning. But never anything further.)

“-I have certainly taken comfort and drawn strength from my soldiers’ fellowship. But not, I think, in the way you have implied.”

Even as he said it Optimus wondered why he was explaining himself at all. But, well, interface _was_ the topic of the hour. Even though he had a limited scope of experience: dim memories of his old civilian life that had only grown more indistinct over the centuries.

Still, if Megatron was curious, let his curiosity be satisfied. Perhaps talking for a time without blaster fire would make them more real to each other, as fellow mechanisms, not simply forces to be opposed. 

“Besides, I believe it is difficult for them to think of me in that way. I am their Prime and Commander, and-” he smiled ruefully, under his mask “-having long subsumed most of my individuality to the Autobot cause, very likely somewhat awkward besides. I had imagined that disqualified me quite thoroughly from anyone’s interest. Hence my initial surprise at your request.”

As he spoke, his processor brought up an old memory file that confirmed this line of thinking: Once, during a brief stopover on Cybertron, he and Elita-One had been forced to recharge in the same chamber of a small outpost. Before recharge the Matrix had been storing and cataloguing his decisions, the color of the sky, his emotional state over the ambush they had won - all to be one day shown and gently impressed into the sparks of future Primes. She had been awake, looking at him kneeling in prayer at the side of the berth, hearing the humming from within, her optics wide. Her field had been both awed and worried: her old Orion, brought forth like a sacrifice and given over to divine forces. A score of romantic rumors followed the night. But all without cause. They were one another’s treasured comrades, but no trace of their former tentative flirtation had survived. 

Ah but perhaps that would be _too_ much information. Up on his throne Megatron was already staring down at him with an absolutely poleaxed expression.

“T-then you have suffered quite the failure of imagination!” 

Having already unburdened himself a little, Optimus couldn’t seem to stop the torrent of awkward honesty from his lips.

“You know, I had been thinking of breaking it - my celibacy. Though I hadn’t thought far enough ahead to consider who with… Actually, in the spirit of fairness, I should warn you: it might be dangerous to attempt interface with me." 

This didn't seem to deter Megatron in the slightest. Actually his fans audibly kicked up a notch. 

" _Oh”_ he purred, “I would expect nothing less! It would be a double joy for me to both take a worthy opponent and to thwart any tradition that would keep a wondrous being such as yourself shackled to pointless chastity. All to the best! _I_ will be the one to draw the veil back from your frame and awaken you."

Oh no. Historical references. He was using historical references. ‘Draw back the veil’ was a reference to a rather... esoteric(and erotic) text on early worship rituals. 

Optimus was sure that he was blushing heavily under the battlemask. Undone by his literary weaknesses, here he was - a hardened warrior steps away from a swoon. 

It seemed talking with Megatron had, perhaps, backfired as a strategy to keep his composure. 

All right. Action, then.

With stately seps he ascended upward to the wide base of the throne proper, careful not to crush any candles under his pedes. Megatron was, as always, larger and warmer up close.

"I’m afraid I am unfamiliar with the protocol for this kind of thing.” he said, again, too honestly. (Though it was safe to assume that he was the warlord’s first and _only_ treaty-sealing consort.) “Do you expect me to kneel? "

His pride, which Optimus normally had well trod under the pede of his patience, did protest that. Helpfully, its resurgence also kept the sudden weakness in his struts at bay.

Megatron smirked. 

"Oh no. _No_. A little early for that, by the look of it. _Later_." 

He got up, unwilling to cede the height advantage for even a moment. Though they were normally of a size, the base of the throne was half a step lower and Optimus found himself optic-level with the warlord’s lips, which flustered him for some reason. 

Equally disconcerting was the way Megatron loomed over him and stroked down the seam of his battlemask with a heavy gray digit.

“I think, a kiss. To start.”

“T-there isn’t anything behind it, you know.” Optimus stammered, overcome by a sudden jolt of embarrassment. For some reason he had thought that he would be permitted to keep the battlemask on. Which, in hindsight, was rather foolish.

“Really? No ancient secrets?” Megatron teased. Then his optics narrowed, almost in sympathy “Or was Primus cruel enough to give you _that_ voice without a mouth?”

“No, I meant that.. it is only my face.”

“The sight of which, I will also insist on possessing.”

Sure as fate Megatron’s digits reached out and found the manual catch just under his left audial. The touch was so unexpected and immediate that when the mask split apart and slid back he was mid-gasp, flushed. 

The palm of his enemy’s rough and pitted servo fell on his cheek and true to Optimus’ warning - a miniature lightning bolt of not-quite-friendly-charge arced from the corner of the mask assembly and shocked him.

They looked at each other. 

He hoped Megatron hadn’t been expecting any fine-featured divine perfection. The rebuild had left Orion’s plain dock-worker face just as it was.

" _Beautiful_." the warlord said and leaned forward. 

_Oh, I’d forgotten this_ Optimus thought, as their lips touched _I haven't.. I haven’t been kissed in so long..._

It was too much, to have this again and to attempt to control his field at the same time. It wrapped around them: shock laced with yearning against a field of banked and long-denied desire. 

When he offered no resistance, the kiss turned triumphant.

Nearer than they’d ever been, he could sense the other mech’s field as well: smugness, lust, honest joy, a little awe. His other servo went from cupping Optimus’ elbow joint up to a smokestack, gripping it (groping it!) firmly, pulling him forward. Optimus moved into it, like being swept away in the first step of a dance.

_‘THREAT’_ the Matrix insisted, sizzling grumpily among his already-heating internals.

_'No.’_ Optimus explained, as if to a wary, possessive sparkling _‘It is only that someone is touching me... and I think I like it.'_ It could not be convinced with words. He had to let himself feel, let himself admit that this was, on the whole, something that he’d thought about. Something that he wanted. 

Somewhere inside he assembled his case: a thousand stolen glances, a hundred half-finished debates, his loneliness, Megatron’s fingers in his wheelwell, and held it up in supplication.

_Please. Just grant me this. A single night._

There was an infinite second of deliberation, and then the wisdom of the ancients went quiet and took away the last of his broken shield.

He moaned, low and sweet, into Megatron’s mouth.

Their chest plating scraped together, leaving the sort of soft, _telling_ paint transfers unmistakably different than the ones from a fight. Eventually he broke free, panting. Or rather he was indulgently, and temporarily, released. The assault had been multi-pronged and thorough. He couldn’t quite catch a full in-vent of air.

Megatron hardly relented. His other servo had wound itself presumptuously into the back of Optimus’ vulnerable neck cabling, his burnt-silver glossa licked at his cheek. 

“Have a care, my dear enemy.” he rumbled “Your surrender is at hand." 

Optimus’ cooling fans were on, but his voice was steady.

"Only until sunrise." 


End file.
